Our goals and to do lists, those are the signs of progress right? We are supposed to know what we want, plan the steps to meet our goals with a deadline, list out our doable daily increments, and check them off one by one. Easy peasy lemon squeezey. Success is measured in doable daily increments. And we forget the importance of being present in the process. We’ve replaced process with destination.

Yet, focused on the outcome, our fear of not achieving this can halt us mid-process. When we are soooo invested in the outcome, vulnerable enough to be completely stopped by our pitfalls, and so set on the perfection of accomplishments, we may overlook those moments of our lives in which our life truly happens. The opportunistic moments of lessons to be learned. The slant of the sunlight or the unmistakable shift in our feelings towards our lives and the people within them. Scariest of all, we may mistake our fears as a sign that this direction is not for us even when yesterday it totally was.

If I allow for the process within the progress, if I thank the process for transforming me while I was “making Progress”, what would that give me? I’d say it would give me context and gratitude you can’t find on any to do list. We can deepen our progress by savoring the process. Let’s collect our tidbits, our lessons, our insights, our grief, and keep moving on toward what makes us feel scared and awesome.

We can deepen our progress by savoring the process.

Were you to allow yourself to persist through and beyond the fear, you’d find that the fear is fleeting. And the accomplished feeling of the follow through, unbelievably uplifting. The fear will fade and what you are left with is the progress, the growth that happened during the process. What you are left with is your self-pride for attempting the thing you feared.

What have you done in spite of your fears that left you feeling proud of your process? What are you shying away from because you think the fear is a sign it’s a bad idea? Share here or somewhere.

If you enjoyed what you read, please subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your email box. And visit me on Instagramto see my daily pictures, friend meor like my pageon Facebook. Or come find me on Twitteror Pinteresttoo. I am always practicing Intentional In-touchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

Related

My name is Shalagh Hogan, pronounced Shay-La. I'm the mother of a teen, a six year-old, and I turned 52 this year. This blog was born in 2011 and my hope and joy as a writer, an artist, and an uber-creative, is that by sharing my journey of self-discovery, others will gain inspiration and permission for their own journeys.

Newsletter

First Name

Email address:

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Interested in having my posts show up in your inbox? Pop your email address here and at 6:30am EST on Mon, Wed, and Fri, they are all yours to read at your leisure. Thank You So Much!